Silver Eagle Refining

Silver Eagle Refining are private oil refiners and manufacturers of different petroleum products in Evanston, WY. The company manufactures gasoline, diesel, Aviation fuel, gel fuels, solid fuels, Benzene, marine fuel, kerosene, Naphtha, and various condensate and distillates. Silver Eagle Refining earns a yearly revenue ranging between $50 to $100 million and has an estimated employee strength of 20 to 49.

Silver Eagle Refining was in the news through out 2009. It has a plant in Salt Lake City which produces 12,500 barrels a day, and was shut down due to safety issues. The Chemical Safety Board and the state regulators found on investigation that the plant had a deficient mechanical integrity program. One of the main problems found was the pipe thickness was deficient. Silver Eagle Refining had employed an outside contractor to inspect the thickness of vessels and pipes and also investigate the mechanical integrity. The readings given by this contractor were considered to be of questionable validity and a new contractor was appointed to again inspect and redo the readings.

The documented readings of the first contractor does not match the actual readings of most of the thickness of vessels and pipes. The investigators from the Chemical Safety Board have confirmed that the minimum thickness was grossly miscalculated of the piping and other equipments. The actual thicknesses which were found, are the type when the equipments are put out of service as they are potentially open to failure. The tensile strength values recommended by the industry standards were not followed.

All these investigations were due to the fire and explosion which occurred recently. The explosion was so powerful that it had knocked down three houses nearby up to their foundations. Luckily there was no injuries from the resulting fire. There was a short power outage due to the explosion and this affected refineries in the nearby area. The cause of the explosion was investigated and was found that a mixture of diesel and hydrogen from a pipe had been released and this highly inflammable liquid had flowed to one of the furnaces where it immediately ignited. Investigators were not able to make out immediately whether the pipe had failed or it was a leak which caused the liquid to come on to the ground and flow towards the furnace. But later, as per the investigations mentioned earlier it was the fault of the thickness of the pipe which was not recorded correctly during the inspections by the contractor.

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